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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28136322">The Progressive Cultural Learnings of Natasha Romanov</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/QuietlyImplode/pseuds/QuietlyImplode'>QuietlyImplode</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Cross-Posted on Tumblr, Cultural Assumptions, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Mention of Starvation, Natasha Romanov Needs a Hug, Natasha Romanov-centric, Sexism, rape mention</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 15:07:10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,339</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28136322</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/QuietlyImplode/pseuds/QuietlyImplode</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Or. </p>
<p>Five things Natasha Romanov found in the strangeness of American culture, and the one she didn’t.</p>
<p>It’s clear from the moment that she meets Clint that he’s loyal. To his handler. To his organization. To his country. It’s something she recognizes in nearly all Americans she comes across. Their love of country, and belief in all that is good. That good will overcome.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Clint Barton/Natasha Romanov</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>92</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>The Progressive Cultural Learnings of Natasha Romanov</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/edgeofthegalaxy/gifts">edgeofthegalaxy</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This is a thank you fic for @edgeofthegalaxy - Who has kept me fairly sane during Election Week (and yes, just getting round to posting it now) whilst answering all my non-american dumbass questions about the election whilst also keeping me positive that the world isn’t all bad.</p>
<p>thank you my friend!</p>
<p>There is brief discussion of sexual assault, assumptions of culture, sexism, and child abuse (all in passing and nothing graphic but the warning is there).</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <strong>1/ Smiling.</strong>
</p>
<p>Everyone here smiles so goddamn much. Everywhere she goes, people have smiles plastered on their faces, they have grins, and loud guffawing laughs that make her shudder at the intrusiveness. </p>
<p>Is it fake? </p>
<p>Are they all just playing under masks and the truth is that they don’t care, it’s a farce? She doesn’t know. She does know that they don’t like being met with a stony face, piecing eyes and look that sees everything they don’t want her to see.</p>
<p>
  <strong>2/ Personal Space</strong>
</p>
<p>She doesn’t want to sit next to anybody, but they want to sit next to her. </p>
<p>Natasha deliberating moves away and yet somehow, they get closer. Even with talking, there’s arms everywhere; people standing too close and she doesn’t get the way they move their bodies so freely. </p>
<p>Did no one teach them that they need to not be in killing distance? That optimally, there should be at least 3 feet between people so that you can see an attack coming?</p>
<p>Clint tries to clear things up for her. She’s got to get used to the smiling and the wonton way they school their faces, but this; this feeling that they’re closing in on her? She doesn’t do well with this, no matter how many reassuring glances he throws at her; no matter how much he gives her warning glares when someone sits near her in debrief. </p>
<p>She’s going to snap one day and just punch them or take them out permanently for getting in her space.</p>
<p>No one here knows, they’re all American born and bred; and they just don’t get it. She’s learnt how to position her body and her face; they haven’t. </p>
<p>Why are they all so trusting? </p>
<p>With their bodies and their words?</p>
<p>
  <strong>3/ Friendship</strong>
</p>
<p>Everyone here is friendly. But they’re not friends. She’s not here to make friends and doesn’t care for the behaviours that come with it.</p>
<p>Clint brought her in. They’re not friends.</p>
<p>Maria has been assigned to her. They’re not friends.</p>
<p>Fury is her boss. They’re not friends.</p>
<p>Only.</p>
<p>Clint plays stupid games with her when they’re waiting for the quinjet to refuel. He waits for her outside medical when she’s cut her hand and it won’t stop bleeding. </p>
<p>Clint nudges her awake when she’s fallen asleep on his couch, and when she wakes in surprise; he’s not put off when he finds a knife to his neck; he just gently reassures her about where she is; and how she got here.</p>
<p>Maria saves her the last doughnut and teaches her where to find the best coffee. </p>
<p>Maria finds her at dinner eating alone in her room, leaves and then brings her spaghetti; and they eat together in silence. She doesn’t mind her company and reminds her of home a bit. </p>
<p>Maria doesn’t invade her personal space and is respectful of her emotions. It’s refreshing. </p>
<p>Maria is the one that finds her after a brutal mission, and sits with her whilst getting a rape exam, that she knows will come back negative but needs to get it done so she doesn’t get more psych sessions added onto her already shit week.</p>
<p>Fury gives her lowball missions after ones that have gone to shit. Easy, scout missions that a rookie could do. She never says no to anything and completes them flawlessly but she knows what he’s doing. </p>
<p>Fury makes her take leave, citing rules and regulations and then sends her to Vienna or the Ukraine to reset and re-establish her own senseabilities. </p>
<p>Sometimes, he sets it up so Clint has the the same leave. </p>
<p>Fury sits her in his office after she punches Rumlow in the face for saying vaguely sexist remarks about a female agent, and gently explains to her why she can’t do that, and then gives her two paid days off to ‘think about what she’s done’. She spends the time shopping and thinking she should do it more often. She smiles and nods at the cashier when she asks Natasha if she has the day off.</p>
<p>They’ve all inserted themselves into her life, subtlety and underhandedly in a way that feels extremely American and it’s starting to feel like what one might call friendship.</p>
<p>
  <strong>4/ Food</strong>
</p>
<p>She does not understand why the portions here are so large. It’s not like they’re starving or food is scarce. It’s almost frightening in abundance. She can’t stand wasting food. And the waste here is… astronomical.</p>
<p>She can’t stand watching Clint push it into the bin, and it’s almost painful when she does it too; the food almost mouldy and well past it’s used by date but still, she think of the times she’s almost starved and shudders when she thinks younger Natasha would have crawled for the food that she’s so willingly throwing away. </p>
<p>She taken to storing food in her fridge and making food, repurposing it and using as much as she can rather than eating out. Clint makes fun of her; but then she sees his face when she packs the food back up; and she knows that he gets it.</p>
<p>She’s learning skills she never learnt about food like spices and salt. Natasha’s learning that she likes some sweet foods and dislikes other; that’s there’s a difference in types of meat and that things she never thought could taste good (potatoes).</p>
<p>She’ll never get used to the abundance though.</p>
<p>
  <strong>5/ Language</strong>
</p>
<p>Sometimes she doesn’t understand the American accent, or even what the hell they are talking about. The easy ones like ‘y’all’ and ‘awesome’ she’s all over; that was covered in language classes and her perusal of movies and American Tv is nothing to sneer at. But then there are those phrase her that just ‘throw her for a loop’, she thinks snidely. </p>
<p>When Clint tells her that something was a ‘sick’ move she nods and continues on her way; her mind wandering to how an action could be ill. She looks it up later and comes to understand the slang means ‘cool’ or ‘awesome’.</p>
<p>Later when one of the trainees tells her she’s ‘ripped’, and laughs; she almost takes his head off; settles for making him run laps. Clint asks later what he did and she tells him that he called her ‘ripped’. He smiles and gently explains that means she’s toned, or fit. He laughs gently at her as she lays her head on his chest. ‘Damn right.’ She whispers to no one in particular; taking the words on board and rolling them around in her head.</p>
<p>It evolves; as all things do, to understanding the colloquialisms and the slang, the loudness. </p>
<p>She worries, at times that she’s losing her Russian and the spends the day just speaking solely in her birth language; she doesn’t care that no one else understands but Fury and Clint, she’s just happy to connect back to something that’s just hers. </p>
<p>She may be newly American but she’ll always be Russian at heart; like her parents and those who have come before her.</p>
<p>She’s not a traitor, she tells herself often. She’s <em>khrabryy. </em></p>
<p>
  <em>Brave.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <strong>+1 Loyalty</strong>
</p>
<p>It’s clear from the moment that she meets Clint that he’s loyal. To his handler. To his organization. To his country. It’s something she recognizes in nearly all Americans she comes across. Their love of country, and belief in all that is good. That good will overcome.</p>
<p>She is not so sure - her loyalties are flexible.</p>
<p>She tells him as such once he’s incapacitated her and proposed a way out of her current life.</p>
<p>He’s suspicious and rightly so, she’s stuck in a situation that most would feel is deadly. S</p>
<p>he could keep fighting and guerrilla this warfare but she’s tired and needs something stable and maybe even a bit of her thinks someone that would miss her if she died. Or at the very least, would remember her name; and not with a sneer or derogatory remark said afterwards. </p>
<p>So, she follows suit and becomes loyal to the man who saved her life by almost taking it.</p>
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